Sterilizing plants

[FishKeeper-16]

What is the best way to sterilize plants to kill snail eggs?< I have them in a 10 gallon quarantine tank and do I soak them in salt?

[Darkblade48]

Not salt, but a potassium permanganate dip (where the KMnO4 solution is a nice pink colour) for about 15 - 20 minutes will kill off most unwanted pests (such as snails).

You could also try a 19:1 diluted bleach solution, but I'd recommend against using this method for most stem plants (especially more sensitive ones, such as Hornwort and Anacharis)

[kveeti]

Another idea.... Alum is great for snails and it is pretty gentle on plants. You can find it in either the canning or spice sections of the grocery store. It is a white powder. The instructions I have are: Use 1 tablespoon of alum per gallon of water. Soak the plants a minimum of 20 minutes, up to a maximum of 2 hours. A two-day soak will kill snails and their eggs. Avoid using this method on extremely fragile plants.

When I originally bought my java moss, the only place I found it was in a shop with a tank FULL of snails. As soon as I put the java moss in alum water and stirred it, itsy bitsy snails dropped to the bottom of the jar. I just kept stirring and picking out the snails and then let it sit for 2-1/2 days. The moss was perfectly fine but, then, it’s practically indestructible.